


silver

by belovedmuerto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Magic, witch!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's this thing, shining and thrumming between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	silver

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so a few moons ago I re-read The Secret Circle trilogy by LJ Smith, because it was my favorite of her trilogies when I was a wee thing (I still haven't watched The Vampire Diaries, although I hear it's good. I watched the first episode of the show based on this trilogy and IT WAS AWFUL. FAY WAS ALL WRONG, DAMMIT. AND SO WAS CASSIE. I have really strong feels about LJ Smith, OK?)
> 
> Anywhoodle, if you're familiar with that trilogy: I basically borrowed the premise of this wholesale from that. Consider this an homage. LJ, I still love you!
> 
> Ostensibly, this is the same 'verse as 'Hematite'. But I'm writing these (and mostly it's just going to be ficlets) all out of order, so I'm not making it a series just yet. This one is pretty... overwrought? Silly? Fluffy-but-sorta-weird in the extreme? All of the above? I dunno. I might decide it needs a major re-write in a couple weeks and take it down again.
> 
> As always, thanks to castiron, although I suspect it's at least half for putting up with me at this point.

Sherlock stands over him, breathing heavy, chest heaving, rigid with tension; arousal evident, shirt half unbuttoned, hair in complete disarray. It’s the sexiest thing John has ever laid eyes on.

“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,” Sherlock huffs, looming over John, eyes wild, hands clenched into fists. “It’s too much, I can’t.”

“Hey,” John says, looking up at Sherlock. It takes his breath away. He doesn’t know how to finish that thought though. He reaches out, slowly, like he’s approaching a skittish animal, a wild creature, and slips his hand around Sherlock’s, fingers dancing against that clenched fist until it relaxes, until it accepts his grasp. 

The silver cord stretches between them, taut and thrumming and making it hard to think around the urge to be close, closer, as close as possible and to never let go. It feels like magic, like all the elements rolled into one, like every spell, every ritual he’s ever done, like safety and the light of the moon and like being skyclad, like sitting in front of his little altar contemplating the universe.

“How can you trust this, John?” Sherlock asks, sounding altogether too close to panic. It makes John nervous, the thought of Sherlock fleeing in panic right now. He can’t have that, he couldn’t stand it, it would rip him asunder. But Sherlock hangs on to John’s hand like his life depends on it, like if he lets go something awful will happen, and John takes comfort from his nearly painful grip. 

John feels the same way he imagines Sherlock does. How can he ever explain what it feels like; he doesn’t even know if Sherlock can feel that link like he does, or see it, although it’s clear that he is affected by it, and that it is terrifying him. John takes a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he replies, quietly. “I just do.”

“I can’t,” Sherlock says again. He sounds torn between wanting and being overwhelmed; he sounds heartbroken. But he doesn’t move, just shakes his head repeatedly, trying to find the logic and failing.

John drops his head, concentrates on breathing. Then he nods. “I can’t be apart from you right now,” he admits softly. Above him, Sherlock gasps, nearly whimpers, and his fingers clench even more painfully around John’s.

Apparently the idea feels as awful to him as it does to John. He looks up, and up, and up, to see Sherlock shaking his head, eyes squeezed shut.

“Ok. Ok, good. We’re agreed on that, at least.” John takes another deep breath. His heart is finally settling back to a normal rate. “Can we...?”

Sherlock opens his eyes and looks down at John. “What?”

“Go to bed?”

Sherlock takes a deep breath to speak, but John plows on, “To sleep. That’s it.”

Sherlock nods, sighs, draws another deep breath. 

John knows how he feels. He is pretty sure he’s feeling the same thing. Urgency, a more than could possibly be healthy dose of lust, the overwhelming sense that if they’re apart for more than the barest hint of time, something awful will happen. It’s awful and wonderful, all together, all at once, and overwhelming. It’s completely overwhelming. John feels like he’s drowning in it, and he can understand Sherlock’s not being able to handle it, not being able to process it or apply logic to it. He’s really not far from panic himself, and he’s dealt with the vagaries of magic his whole life. But they’re together, neither of them is going anywhere. They won’t be apart. And that calms him, that keeps him from flying apart into component elements.

“OK. OK, good,” John says. Sherlock nods again, eyes still wide, still clutching John’s hand in his own. He doesn’t move.

After a few more moments of gazing up at Sherlock, John finally decides to be the brave one, and gives him a nudge. “Go on, go change. I’ll be upstairs.”

Another nod. Slowly, tentative, Sherlock lets go of John’s hand and walks through the kitchen to his room. He looks back several times, as though making sure John is still there, hasn’t disappeared, isn’t running away. John tries to smile reassuringly, tries to hide how terrified he is. He’s not so sure that he does a good job of it.

John sits for a minute, takes a deep breath, and heads upstairs to change into his pyjamas and hopefully take a minute to calm down.

\---

Sherlock tries to stay downstairs, in his own room. But he can’t. 

The whole time he’s changing, he tells himself he’ll just go to bed. It’s too much, too soon, too fast. He doesn’t trust it, can’t trust it, there’s no logic to this connection, this thing between them, drawing them together, making it so he can barely stand being far enough from John to change his clothes, let alone any further for any length of time.

He sits down and his breath starts to heave. He tries to lay back on his bed, and starts having a panic attack instead.

By the time he’s outside John’s door, his breath has calmed, and his heart has slowed. He’s still terrified, shaking with it, and he hesitates before knocking.

\----

John sits cross-legged on his bed and waits. When it comes, the tap at his door is hesitant, soft, entirely unlike Sherlock. But Sherlock doesn’t wait for him to answer before pushing the door open, which is entirely like him. He hesitates on the threshold, and John realizes that Sherlock’s never been in his room.

They haven’t been living together for very long at this point, and apparently the simple deterrents he habitually puts on his things worked on Sherlock. He’ll have to take those down, or at least re-key them to no longer apply to Sherlock. 

“Come on in,” John says. 

Sherlock does, and John doesn’t miss the widening of his eyes as he steps into the room.

John has made it a haven, over the few short months he’s been living here. Carefully placed crystals and charms, lots of meditation and focused intent, and coming to this room is almost always a calming and soothing experience. Evidently, Sherlock feels it too. It’s further proof of the connection between them, proof of its existence, its veracity, its vitality.

“Are you making it feel like this in here?” Sherlock asks, trying to cover fear with a sneer. It twists his face, momentarily, into something ugly. He can’t maintain it, though, and his expression falls into awe and nerves. He looks incredibly young and vulnerable.

John shakes his head, then nods. “It’s not for you, Sherlock. This is for me.”

Sherlock relaxes and takes a deep breath. “It’s wonderful,” he says, then looks surprised, like he hadn’t meant to admit to that.

“Isn’t it?” John smiles and scoots back across the bed, lays down, turns on his side to face Sherlock, pulls the covers up as far as his waist, and waits.

Sherlock looks at him, away, back again, fidgets from foot to foot. “I tried to stay downstairs.”

John nods.

“I couldn’t. I started to panic.”

John nods again. “I’m sorry.”

“Is it always going to be like this?” Sherlock asks in a voice gone soft and breathy with fear.

“I hope not. It will make things rather difficult if it does.”

It’s Sherlock’s turn to nod. 

“But then, we’re already pretty much attached at the hip; even before this made it... more urgent.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, and John smiles, watches as Sherlock apparently decides to place his trust in John entirely. He’s not sure he deserves it, he doesn’t understand this thing, shining between them, drawing them to each other, making it impossible for them to be apart right now without inducing panic, he doesn’t understand it any better than Sherlock does. 

Sherlock climbs into bed and curls up with his back to John. John scoots closer. “May I?”

Sherlock nods. John shifts closer still, spoons against Sherlock’s back. He presses his nose against Sherlock’s neck and inhales, exhales slowly. All of the tension leaves his body. This, right here, this is right. This is good. This is where he belongs. It’s a relief, it’s like his bones finally aligning, slotting into their proper place, at Sherlock’s back, with him always.

In his mind’s eye, he sees them as they’d look from above, laying together in bed, curled against each other, John’s arm around Sherlock, Sherlock’s fingers twined through his, Sherlock’s head bowed, John’s lips against his nape. And wrapped around them, coiled and shining, snug but not too tight now, no longer tugging them inexorably closer, is the silver cord. The same one he’s seen time and again, ever since their first meeting.

John brushes his lips against the soft skin of Sherlock’s neck, back and forth, back and forth. It’s comforting, soothing, and Sherlock slowly relaxes beneath his ministrations, so he imagines Sherlock is finding it soothing as well.

“I saw it the first time we met,” John says eventually, voice a low, warm vibration against Sherlock’s neck.

“Hmm?” Sherlock shifts just a bit, not so far that John’s lips leave his neck; his brain has derailed against that one spot, that single point of contact that should really be arousing but is something else instead, soothing, comforting, keeping him alive, keeping him grounded and present and whole.

“I don’t know what to call it, a silver cord or something. I saw it, when I walked into that lab at Barts, and it sort of... thrummed. It resonated, and I thought, _oh yes of course, there you are_.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock replies. 

“I didn’t believe it at first,” John continues in that same soft voice. “I didn’t want to; you’re not the easiest person to live with. But whenever I tried to think about going, about being anywhere but at your side, I started to freak out. I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Sherlock. I didn’t mean for this to happen; neither of us had any choice. I’m sorry.”

Sherlock is quiet for a long time, and John doesn’t speak again. His arms tighten slightly, and he resumes that soothing rub of his lips back and forth against the soft skin of Sherlock’s nape, edging his nose into the curl of his hair, reveling in the comfort of his scent.

“I saw it too,” Sherlock eventually says, voice barely a whisper. He tightens his fingers around John’s, shifts again to snuggle closer. 

John sighs against Sherlock’s neck, in relief. 

“It’s not your fault, John.”

John makes a noise, half chuckle, half sob, and ducks his head down while he tries to calm himself; the relief that he’s not the only one who sees it, that Sherlock doesn’t blame him, doesn’t think he did this to bind them together, isn’t angry with him, is overwhelming. They’re in this together, and they’ll figure it out together, and they’ll deal with it together. 

That’s the important part. Together.

Soon enough, they’re both asleep, wrapped securely around each other, the silver cord wrapped securely around both of them, binding them together in its shining coil.


End file.
